


From The Back of My Broken Hand

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Play Along [25]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Crossover, Gen, band au, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 09:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7635016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "any. any. <i>If suddenly / you forget me  / do not look for me,  / for I shall already have forgotten you. </i>(Pablo Neruda)"</p><p>Dave makes the men on his business trip forget him and wonders if the world has forgotten Jennifer and he might have forgotten, for the duration of a set, that he wants John to come home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From The Back of My Broken Hand

Dave knew he was taking a chance, sneaking away to a Snakeskinners concert when he should have been wining and dining with some Sheppard Industries contacts, but this was New York City, and this was Madison Square Garden, and this was John’s dream, somehow still limping along despite losing Jennifer and going acoustic and pared down, like the garage band they’d been as teenagers all over again. But Dave knew that seeing John and his band like this, crowded in with thousands and thousands of screaming fans, would be far different from watching him in a smoky club with dubious acoustics and a cheap sound system.  
  
So Dave smiled, feigned the onset of a cold, and bade the older, austere gentlemen good evening, and retreated to his hotel room. He emerged ten minutes later, wearing jeans and a Space Monkeys t-shirt, and crossed the lobby quickly, but the whiskey-drinking businessmen had already forgotten him. He spilled out onto the sidewalk and hailed a cab. He’d bought the concert tickets on the credit card his father knew nothing about - the same card he’d used to buy Kathy’s engagement ring - and he’d gotten himself good seats, but not backstage passes, because that would just be weird. He could only imagine what it was like backstage, with Jennifer’s gaping absence.  
  
Evan had stopped sending Dave text messages about John the night Jennifer collapsed, but John had kept up with him, let him know how Jennifer was doing, that he’d gotten the results of his latest tests, and he was officially cancer-free. Dave considered sending John a text message, a brief good luck or something, but John was smart, he’d figure out Dave was watching, and he’d probably get nervous, and Dave didn’t want to throw John off of his A-game. He milled in line behind other fans outside the venue, trooped inside with them and went to find his seat. He was sharing a row with a bunch of raucous young women who were, by all appearances, out for one girl’s bachelorette party. They were all wearing Snakeskinners shirts and chattering excitedly.  
  
Dave sat quietly, waiting, wondering, and when the lights went down and the cheers rose up, the time for wondering was over.  
  
But the lights didn’t come up. They didn’t come up and didn’t come up and -  
  
Piano music exploded across the stadium, rapid and sweeping and dramatic until it gentled to simple chord progression.  
  
And then a man began to sing, a man whose voice Dave didn’t recognize. But he did recognize the song, he realized. He’d heard those sweeping piano notes coming from John’s room many times before. People around Dave murmured in confusion, anonymous in the dark.  
  
A single spotlight came on. Dave would have recognized that curly hair, those long-fingered hands anywhere. Of course Rodney would be playing a grand piano and not Jennifer’s little electric keyboard.  
  
“ _So tonight I’ll be your Brooklyn,_ ” Rodney sang, and was it Dave’s imagination, or up on the massive screens, could he see Rodney’s hands shaking?  
  
“ _So cold and yet so far away / Just tell me what you want for me to say / And if it brings you home…_ ”  
  
Rodney’s voice wasn’t especially beautiful, but it was clear and strong, and it was full of emotion. Dave had no doubt Rodney was singing to Jennifer, no matter who the song had been about before.  
  
But the second time he sang _Brooklyn_ , cheers rose up, because this was New York, and the Brooklyn natives were excited to hear about the place they loved.  
  
The song ended, and the lights came up. Rodney leaned into the microphone and said, “Good evening, New York City.”  
  
The fans cheered.  
  
“I know we’ve never officially met before, but I’m Rodney McKay, and tonight, I’ll be on keys for the Space Monkeys.”  
  
The fans cheered louder.

“I’m not taking Jennifer’s place. I don’t think I ever could - I couldn’t sing that high to save my life.”  
  
The fans laughed. Dave was - awed. Rodney was good-looking, no question about that, but he was being charming. Funny.  
  
“But I am here to bring you the music she loved to play, we all love to play. Our sound tonight is in Siler’s capable hands.”  
  
The spotlight swung over to the soundbooth high up on the edge of the massive room.  
  
“Say hello, Siler.”  
  
A pale hand emerged from the box, waved briefly.  
  
Then the spotlight swung back to Rodney. “This next song might or might not be the reason this band got together and stayed together. Jennifer asked John why he was with us - he started off as our temporary guitarist, as I’m sure many of you know. And he said, _Being with the band beats kicking my heels alone._ And Jennifer said, _At least you’re not stoned._ Sing along if you know it. This is Kicking My Heels.”  
  
The lights went down, save for a single spotlight on Rodney, who began to play. Dave was used to the version that began with the drums and the electric keyboard, the version he heard on the radio. He’d heard that the new, stripped-down Space Monkeys show was melancholy, like the band was mourning Jennifer Keller’s death. But Rodney hit those opening chords, and then John’s voice rang out across the stadium.  
  
“ _Why d’you keep me around / when you could have anyone in this town / Am I the best you hoped for / or just the best that you found…_ ”  
  
The lights came up, and there was John, guitar slung across his back, curled around the mic stand, eyes closed.  
  
The fans screamed, including the women around Dave, and he cringed beneath the tidal wave of sound. John’s voice rose above it all, Rodney’s gentle piano chords buoying his voice up.  
  
When John hit the final chorus, “ _Don’t wanna worry the rest of my life / Just wanna stay here and have a good time_ ,” the audience joined in, clapping their hands, and Dave joined in with them. John’s eyes opened, and he grinned, clapping his hands above his head, and he looked delighted. Joyful.  
  
And Dave wondered how he could ever take John away from this, how anyone had dared try.  
  
The song ended, and John bounded across the stage, tugged Rodney to his feet and dragged Rodney into bows with him.  
  
“Everybody,” John crowed, “Rodney McKay!”  
  
The fans cheered.  
  
“This next song,” John said, “is off our first album, which officially comes out on Tuesday. But for some of you lucky people, you can pick up copies here tonight.”  
  
The fans went wild.  
  
John settled his guitar into place. “This is called Broken Heart.”  
  
“Oh,” one of the girls beside Dave whispered, “I haven’t heard that one yet.”  
  
John began to strum and sing, and Dave was unsurprised when another spotlight snapped on for the second verse and Ronon was onstage with his guitar, strumming along and singing harmony. Dave was surprised when yet another light kicked on at the same time as Teyla joined in on a later harmony.  
  
When the song ended, Teyla leaned into her mic and said, “Welcome, Rodney, to the other side of being a Space Monkey.”  
  
“Thanks, Teyla.” Rodney smiled, and the girls, they cheered and screamed.  
  
John and Ronon played The General on their guitars, and once again the audience joined in on the chorus, _Go now, you are forgiven_. The song after that sounded old-fashioned, like the kind of thing Dave would hear in a jazz bar, Rodney on piano and Teyla singing. Hailey and Grace from the Snakeskinners joined them for a song called Nineteen Stars that had just the women on vocals, Teyla singing mostly harmonies.

The show was amazing. John was amazing. When he and Teyla played Gone Away, Dave’s throat closed, and he was mourning his mother all over again. Dave hadn’t seen John at a piano in, quite literally, years.  
  
The set ended with another never-heard-before song from the new album called Your Love is a Song, John and Ronon on guitar and acoustic bass, Rodney and Teyla sharing a mic and adding their voices to the choruses. Without being bidden, people turned on the flashlights on their cell phones and started to wave them, and the entire stadium became a sea of stars. Dave watched, entranced. When the song ended, the audience went wild.  
  
Teyla told the audience that if they looked under their seats, they’d find a special promo code that would allow them to buy and download their new album tonight if they so chose, and the lights went down, and the house lights came up, and everyone - including Dave - scrambled to find the code. He had the album downloading before he sat down.  
  
He stared at the cover image on his phone, five members of the band, Teyla front and center, flanked by John and Ronon, Rodney and Jennifer on the far edges of the group, and realized he hadn’t thought of his father once, not of Sheppard Industries or the life he was supposed to be leading.  
  
The women on either side of Dave were chanting, _Rodney! Rodney! Rodney!_  
  
The chant spread, and soon the entire stadium was filled with the sound of the man’s name.  
  
Dave wondered if they’d ever chanted like that for John.  
  
Or Jennifer.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from All These Things That I've Done by The Killers
> 
> Song credits (with links to acoustic versions):
> 
> [Brooklyn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAzLm1zlknk) \- Wakey Wakey  
> [Kicking My Heels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVP-9hDN9sg) \- Tyler Hilton  
> [Broken Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ2M_5jW2Yw) \- Motion City Soundtrack  
> [The General](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTjbkLM-Q2A) \- The Dispatch  
> [Adieu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws8X31TTB5E) \- Yoko Kanno and Emily Bindiger  
> [Nineteen Stars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-97eW97JYU) \- Meg and Dia  
> [Gone Away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_rxzwZuTQ0) \- The Offspring  
> [Your Love Is A Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AijIQve9YSI) \- Switchfoot


End file.
